Monsieur Jonquelle (3 page)

Monsieur Jonquelle stopped here in his narrative, like one who would wish a hearer to grasp the whole conception of the story before he went on. But he did not seek a comment. The man beyond him waited for him to go on, and he presently continued:

“I shall not follow the detail of all the experiences noted down by Chauvannes, and which, finally, brought him to the conclusions at which he at length arrived. He was able, after this night, to observe the creature and a number of its companions, although the man Leturc, who was always with him, seems never to have observed it.
Chauvannes got a profound impression of the creatures. They constantly gave him the idea of intelligence separated from any human feeling. He got also the impression that they were blind—at least in the sense that we understand blindness. That they had some other sense which was equal, if not superior, to the sense we call sight, was, he thought, clearly evident.

“He was also able to discover, although he does not give all the details of that discovery in the journal, that these creatures lived underground, and that one of their underground cities was very close to the camp. He had, in fact, by some sinister hazard, put down his camp almost at the doorway of the underground habitat of these extraordinary beings—if one could call a creature of this character a being in our sense.

“I suppose it was these conceptions of the
Thing
that caused Chauvannes to note in his journal a parallel in our modern fiction—the story of the Englishman Wells, about an underground creature, a degenerate of the human race, living in the darkness of a subterranean world and supporting itself on the flesh of the surface remnant of that race grown lovely and effeminate!

“Chauvannes in his journal did not draw a parallel. But he noted the details of this story, which he had read, as of something that occurred to him after he had actually discovered the creatures,
of which he had come out of the forest of the Congo with that dominating premonition.

“Now, these are among the distinguishing incidents of Chauvannes' journal that led Your Excellency, and the Paris authorities, to believe that Chauvannes was mad. The culmination of events seemed to establish it.

“You know how the journal goes on, giving the minute details that Chauvannes observed during the week that he was alone with Leturc, while the American beach comber, Dix, and the Finn made their journey to the Nyanza. And you know how Chauvannes finally came to the conclusion that the seven great emeralds, which he carried sewed up in the lining of his waistcoat, were the things that set these creatures on him.

“The emeralds are in the Louvre. They are seven of the most extraordinary jewels in the world. They are larger and purer than any other known emerald. They are cut in a manner of which we have no knowledge, and the backs of them are covered with a hieroglyphic writing that antedates any language that we know, and which, so far, has baffled every effort to translate.

“At any rate, although the Frenchman Leturc was with Chauvannes all the time—was, in fact, guarding him all the time—and although he was never at any time more than a dozen meters from the door of the tent, and although no sound was
ever heard, no violence was ever offered to anything, no track was ever seen, no act was ever done of which Chauvannes had any knowledge, or the guard Leturc had any knowledge—in spite of all this, on the very day before the return of Dix and the Finn, the emeralds disappeared!

“Chauvannes wrote it down in detail in the journal.

“He was certain, accurate, without any trace of doubt; the emeralds—no longer in his possession—were in the underground habitat of these creatures! And the opening to this habitat was close beside the very place of the camp.

“It was hardly any wonder that the men with him considered him mad, especially when one reads the closing pages of the journal. He takes, in writing, an elaborate and tender farewell of the three men. He thanks them in detail for their courage, their unfailing kindness to him and their devotion to the expedition. No man could have written a higher testimonial of the fidelity of his companions. He points out that his death is impending and certain. He begs that the journal may be carried to France, and he urges the French government to send out an expedition to recover the emeralds, which, he says, are concealed in the first underground dwelling of the creatures, which he has described, as though he were aware of the fact that there were other dwellings of these creatures
about. The emeralds are in the one closest to the camp, and they can be recovered! He is insistent on this point, as he is insistent on the fact that his death is near and inevitable, and as he is insistent on the fidelity of the three men with him.

“And when on the following day, as Leturc reported, he seized the Finn's rifle and shot himself, the men were, of course, convinced that he was mad.”

There came a sudden vigor into Monsieur Jonquelle's voice.

“But he was not mad! Don't you see, Excellency, that the whole narrative of the journal was an immense cipher? Don't you see what the man was doing?”

The voice beyond Monsieur Jonquelle, in the darkness of the portico, boomed in a sudden big expletive. There was the sound of a doubled fist crashed into the palm of a hand.

“Wonderful!” he cried. “It's clever beyond words. Good God! Think of the man in that deadly position working out a clever thing like that. He knew what was going to happen to him. He knew it as soon as he picked up those jewels under the overturned stones on the Congo. He knew he would never come out alive, and he worked out the cipher in this journal to show where the emeralds were concealed, so the French
authorities could recover them. And he worked out all the details to be sure that the journal would finally get into Paris. It's wonderful! It's amazing.”

He beat his leg with his big hand, thumping it as one might thump grist in a bag.

“I never dreamed that that was what the man was after. I thought he was mad!”

“Surely,” replied Monsieur Jonquelle. “It was the first impression of everybody. But he was not mad. He was merely making a great cipher with all the details of this journal—a cipher that would deceive the three men who had already killed off all the natives in his expedition, and who had determined to murder him after they were certain that they could reach the Albert Nyanza! A cipher that would so completely deceive them, by bearing on its face the proof of their innocence and of his own madness, that they would be careful to get it to the French authorities as a justification of themselves!

“He knew there was no chance that he would ever come out alive! But he wished to rob these assassins of the treasure which they coveted, and he wished the record of his expedition and these incomparable emeralds to reach France. He therefore prepared a journal in which was concealed, as in a code, all the actual facts connected with his expedition and his assassination, and at
the same time would disclose the place in which the emeralds were concealed. It would also bring the assassins to that justice which they deserved. He foresaw that Dix and the Finn would assume that Leturc had stolen the emeralds. He knew that the Apache Frenchman was shrewder than these two, that he would realize their suspicion and that he would forestall it by their murder—a thing we know immediately happened after the assassination of Chauvannes on the morning of their return. This was established by the fragmentary confession of the Apache Leturc, shortly before he was executed.”

Monsieur Jonquelle stopped.

“I maintain, Excellency, that this whole journal is the finest example of code writing that was ever undertaken in the world.”

He paused. And his voice took on a note of profound courtesy.

“You know, Excellency, what the creature was that Chauvannes described, and where the emeralds were hidden?”

Again the big voice boomed.

“Surely,” it cried. “Our conception of a thing depends on the manner in which it is described and the mental state which has been prepared to receive that description. It was the ant! The red ant! And the emeralds were concealed in the ant-heap nearest to the point where the camp was located!”

London had been in fog for a week—that thick, yellow, sulphurous fog that seems to seep out of the earth, that turns the city into a cavern, packed with the smoke of an inferno and filled with weird sounds. It had lifted a little on Friday evening when Monsieur Jonquelle came out of the Empire Service Club.

“
Diable
!” he commented as he waited for his motor to draw up; “these Britons have lungs of brass.”

He had come this day from Paris and dined with Sir James Macbain, the head of the English department of police. London had been startled by a mystery, a mystery that had emerged from this fog.

On Wednesday night a four-wheeler had taken a fare at Charing Cross upon the arrival of the train from Dover. The fog was thick and the driver did not notice that a second man entered his cab. The only one he remembered was a short, stout man of middle age who named a hotel in Gloucester Road. When the four-wheeler arrived before the door of the hotel two men were
found in it. The short, stout one was dead and the other unconscious. The dead man proved to be Lord Landeau and the other the Count de Choiseul. Both had been shot in precisely the same direction from right to left. But while the bullet that killed Lord Landeau had passed entirely through his body, that which entered the Count de Choiseul had been deflected by striking a rib and had caused only a flesh wound that bled profusely. A revolver with two chambers empty was lying on the floor of the cab. The driver explained that as he passed Hyde Park he heard two reports in quick succession, but he took them to be the explosive sounds of a motor vehicle close behind him. Upon regaining consciousness the Count de Choiseul had declined to make any statement whatever.

The motor crossed Piccadilly and entered Bond Street. Monsieur Jonquelle, traveling whither he could not see, thought of the tragedy and of what Sir James had said:

“The man's guilty, guilty as the devil, but we have failed to trace the weapon, and if he continues to keep his mouth closed we cannot convict him. When we have put our case in, some nimble little barrister will pop up, hint that the prisoner is silent to shield a woman, offer some cock-and-bull story to fit the facts, and out he goes free as any of us. Damn the law! That's what I say.
In your country a prisoner can be taken before a magistrate and interrogated, but here he can sit tight and the crown cannot even comment on the fact of his silence.”

Monsieur Jonquelle smiled as he recalled this didactic explosion of the angry baronet; he was familiar with the English law. The taxi turned off sharp into a narrow street running toward Park Lane, and presently drew up before a door. It was one of those gloomy, respectable houses that seem to have dwelt forever in these gloomy, respectable squares between New Bond Street and the border of Hyde Park. There was a policeman on this street, but not precisely before the door. He strolled up when the motor stopped, but after a glance at the man who got out and a word to the driver he passed on.

A servant admitted Monsieur Jonquelle and conducted him to a room on the second floor. There, a man sat reading by a library table. The man was not an Englishman, nor was one able precisely to say of what race he was. One placed him indefinitely in the south of Europe. He had an impressive face, but in it there was something subtly wrong. One thought it was the slack lip, or the small, deep-seated eye, or the heavy jaw, but no one of these features seemed to account for the strength of the impression. He was about forty, strong and athletic, one of a dozen figures
to be seen on any morning on the golf course at Cannes or on the links above La Turbie. He seemed a sort of invalid in some sense, for there was a pillow within the arm of the chair on the left side. He looked up sharply when Monsieur Jonquelle entered. The Frenchman did not speak until the door was closed behind him; then he bowed with a formal courtesy.

“My dear Count,” he said, “permit me to congratulate you.”

“I thank you, Monsieur,” replied the man, “the wound proves fortunately slight, although the loss of blood was considerable.”

“Pardon,” continued the Frenchman with a faint, whimsical smile, “I do not felicitate Monsieur le Comte upon his health, but upon his courage.”

“Courage!” echoed the man. “What courage have I shown in this affair?”

“Monsieur le Comte continues to mistake the object of my remark,” said the Prefect of Police as he advanced into the room, put his hat and stick on a console and sat down, drawing off his gloves.

“It was not in the affair in which the Count de Choiseul received his wound that he has shown this daring that moves me to a compliment, but after that, when he came to this house.”

The man's face darkened.

“And why should I not come here?” he returned.
“It is now the property of Lady Landeau. She wired from the Continent directing that I should be removed to this house and properly attended, when she heard of my injury. It was a delicate courtesy, seeing that Lady Landeau is herself prostrated at Bad Nauheim.”

“
Magnifique
!” exclaimed Monsieur Jonquelle. “Bad Nauheim! It is where one goes for the heart. And such a sensitive, such a delicate and impressionable heart is this heart of my lady.”

He made a slight gesture.

“Who should know this better than the Count de Choiseul? Ah, Monsieur, do not traverse the soft impeachment. It is the gossip of fashionable Europe. One hears it on every hand, at Biarritz, at Trouville, at Ostend—of course, Monsieur, in the whisper only and under the rose, but one hears it for all that, this infatuation of Lady Landeau for the Count de Choiseul.… Bad Nauheim, truly!
Eh, bien
! Many waters will not quench it, neither those of Haute-Savoie nor of any German spring.”

“Monsieur,” said the man coldly, “you go very far.”